When I tuck my hands into the wool fingerless gloves, close them into fists,

then open them again to the world

When I drive to CVS to pick up my dad’s antibiotics, for healing the stitches

Under a puffy bandage on his cheek

When I walk in the biting 36 degrees, come inside with a crimson face,

and find that the frost has expelled the damp muck from my mind

When I taste the bitterness of a cappuccino and the softness of Quiche Lorraine

When I stir ground turkey in the skillet pan, add southwest taco mix,

And fix a plate of it for my mother

When I encourage my friend to share her singing, because singing is giving

When I string gold, red, and azure beads onto a necklace to wear into town

And at night, when I soak in the shower under the pelting hot water

thinking, “Thank you, thank you.”

————————————–

Claire Kenny called us from Philadelphia, PA.

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I want to own that electric blue Ford Fiesta again.

Drive all night, & all day, & all night through.

Let the odometer eat the miles it takes to marvel

at an endless Texas, until the car runs out of gas,

& I am staring down the old shingles on the gazebo

in the town square in Calhoun City, Mississippi.

Back to the place where my grandmother was raised (the last of eight),

& my grandfather is known by his middle name.

Where we spent a sweet tea summer bottle feeding the puppies

sprouting from under the neighbor’s porch & I learned

to play checkers on black & paint picket fences white.

& got good at using the old broom to knock down

hornets nests in the attic bedroom.

& there was still time

to sit in Bayne’s back garden, call him great granddaddy

once more, while he stood between the vines of his tomato patch,

peeling away each soft leaf to reveal the globed fruits.

In the palm of his hands, the army knife from his daddy,

the great-great unknown, unfolded to divide orb from stem;

those hands, blue-veined & knobby at the end of August,

that stayed clasped together while he waited.

I remember,

I wanted to dig down into the loam & take a piece of that place,

craggy & soft, with me. Wanted that earth to know me,

the ridges of my tongue, the way I took communion.

How I too knew what Piggly Wiggly was & how to dress

when called for Sunday Service. Proof that I knew

the patience of that harvest, ripened in those hills.

The red clay, no, maybe, maroon, like the tomato,

served on a paper plate between white bread, or bitten

through the flesh right there in that garden, where

wet tracks from the seeds ran down my cheeks;

my voice, a lullaby, humming for the trees.

————————————–

Jordan Cobb called us from New York, NY.

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I come in knowing where you are,

hunched beneath the

showerhead,

breathing hard,

swaying under the spray,

eyes unmoored.

I enter the tub

soft-footedly,

into the shallow water,

circling your ankles

until I become a small ocean,

and you, shuddering in my tide,

hold yourself hostage

with the strength of your arms

wrapped around your knees.

the window fogs over,

steam on the glass keeps crying

as if it’s trying to drown you.

and the tub swells inside me

then rests within me.

you raise your head.

mist softens around you,

and you remember how to breathe.

————————————–

Montana Tiatia-Sefilino called us from Auckland, New Zealand.

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I was minding my own business

when it happened.

A flash of brown.

A single ringing blow, then

a dull thud.

That was all it took

to end the mourning

dove. How our window shook

to look upon its brutal work.

At least it was quick. A useless mercy.

To spend a life singing

just to go out making that sound.

To have the entire sky, wide open

and die trying to fly into a room.

I did the only thing I could: go outside

to make sure. I knelt by the lifeless body,

feathers all askew. It seemed to look back up at me.

Its eye a planet — gone

still, its final act

an accusation.

Days later, what happened

on the other side of the glass

never touched me.

I touch the window, stained now.

A casual stroke of red

like a hurried kiss

goodbye.

————————————–

Grace called us from Midland, Canada.

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He left his toothbrush on my sink—

a reminder so slight,

yet it haunts me as surely as his touch.

I pointed it out, as if I wished to free myself of it;

he smiled

as he walked out my door,

and chained me with his leaving it there.

And I, a fool to my own heart,

left my razor in his bathroom—

a blade

as sharp as he sees me,

as useless as hope,

bound to rust with the hours wasted.

————————————–

Lilly Purdon called us from Miami, FL.

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plush meadow thick, like the mop

of an evergreen love

speckled instinctively with dandelions

marking its fertility

–i bring my palm to my duafe

which beast of the divine

bestowing her highest honor

releasing it all carried;

re-entering the soup

time’s folding us all

into the dawn of my thirty-fourth

–yes us all, broken down.

ribs sprouting with floral aplomb

tufts of fur and moss matrimonial

i don’t wrestle my angel

we kiss sweetly

after sharing the heavenly cup

she shares with me the burden

of misattributed humanity

we swap prophetic missives of beauty

at once, a faithful servant

angel asks “do you know how it feels

to die and be re-born?”

i tighten my grip

and stare off into rigid dark

my death never quite holds

how naive i was in youth

our lessons never far behind

us a raven honks

“amelia, it was just a false alarm”

i soothe earth angel

i say “we’re reflections of each other”

i pray it’s really true

sitting where god’s feet

once were grass bearing phantom heft

tears shed for wilder rebirths

and to be rid of the pain

————————————–

beatrice bee called us from Philadelphia, PA.

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i was born lake, formed lake even

before that, the dig deep landscape

before the motor, pine letter making

berms where the snow retreats, so

many parts of me are containers for

water

i had to move, i didn’t know this

from outside of my body, from

outside of any body, didn’t

want to be the sloshing water,

didn’t want to be the wake, didn’t

want to wake to know who gets the

water

who gets the water out

/

i was born lake, formed lake,

filled up and emptied out lake,

decades lake and what to show

for it, miles lake with bubbles

forming, lake approximating

water until it finds flow

earth comes in, not base of lake

but base of skull, base of over-

whelmed body made of dirt so

sinking, so water makes the mess

glow, the messbody, its liquid-solid

partnership going all directions

finding music under lifted heel

mud’s facial structure finally

doing it right, you’re new to the

community play so the role isn’t

going to fit you

but with the ground under you

you can really put on your water

you can happen to yourself in

the time it takes to happen, you

can partner your gender on its own

twos are everywhere and nowhere

/

i was born lake, formed lake and

something else happened

something else happened

something else happened

something else happened

something else happened

something else happened

something else was happening

my first time body worked up

to the edge, this first time

waking, not first time water

not only water not only waking

curious bloom waiting under

the waves

/

i was born lake but figured land, as

though you could just tip and get

all the water out, as though the

water would go nowhere and the

land would remain empty

my enduring liquid seemed to cause

others fear, confusion, discomfort

they couldn’t make the water mean

something for themselves (or

worse: they could)

some people believe water to be the

worst that could happen, some sort

of consequence

just tell me you know nothing

about submerging, tell me you

refuse curiosity toward your

own flow

being lake depends on the land

this is not called spectrum

this cannot be placed on a line

this cannot be plotted, is always

moving

my waterbody

taught me that

————————————–

jj rowan called us from Laconia, NH.

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Saying I love you in my mother tongue

is impossible. My mother never loved me

in words. She gave up a continent

for me, its contents traded

for a feathered hope of better. For me,

she went to scrub the floors in houses

we could not afford, came home

and scrubbed our floors, as well, then

shopped, and cooked, and mended,

and then scrubbed some more.

The days all slipped into the slit

between the scrubbing and the cooking,

like errant peas dried in the gap

between the cupboard and the stove,

and there was never time for words.

So now, my mother tongue sticks

in my throat like the smell of bleach

and cumin. I've had to learn

three other languages just to find words

to talk of love, and even so, sometimes

I'll just offer to hem your trousers.

————————————–

Ella B. Winters called us from England, UK.

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The bells

like a leviathan

breach the membrane of the liquid dark,

tumbling forth like a vanguard

incited by adrenaline and the call of drumbeats.

The God Paradox States:

1. If God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, He has the power and also the desire to end evil.

Through the open window, the January air

bites at the alveoli

lodged deep behind my sternum;

moonbeams litter the asphalt in geometric shapes

refracted by a million prisms all the way down.

2. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, He has the knowledge and also the power to end evil.

3. If God is omniscient and omnibenevolent, He has the knowledge and also the desire to end evil

The night is austere, the world holding its collective breath

for the dawn of sunrise and the gift of another day;

I drive by the specter of the old cemetery,

and the bells continue to toll

calling the faithful back to God.

4.) Evil exists.

5.) Therefore…

My unfinished Ph.D.in Nietzschean philosophy

floats into my forebrain like an air bubble.

“God is dead,” I tell the bells,

recalling my catechisms from a former lifetime

with a sardonicism that feels almost like mourning.

“This is not for God,” the bells tell me. “This is just for you.”

I drive and I listen

to the notes dancing through the dark on the way to my ears –

the chimes and the melody and the perfect fifths –

as the night opens up ahead of me

and the rest of my life beckons from

right down the road.

————————————–

Shannon Frost Greenstein called us from Jenkintown, PA.

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the vines awaken

to greet the ripening day

the sun climbs to its zenith

scattering darkness from every corner

you fold your sorrowing hands

across your belly

only yesterday

there was a heartbeat

your weary body tightens

under the blaze of light

yet your soul

remains untouched by its ray

————————————–

Aleksandra Jovičić Đinović called us from Serbia.

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